Better Call Saul - Season Three Discussion

The thing is, though, history is not new. You can write a dissertation without Mad Men as your backdrop if you want to and still cover no new ground. It's done all of the time in the world of academia.

Certainly, because I enjoyed the show, I was invested in what Don thought of the Watts riots, or what Meghan thought of Bobby Kennedy's assassination, or how they showed black people and women rise in the workplace, but it's not as if they really "tackled" any issues where the characters in Mad Men brought about any real change. Don was often stoic, at best; Roger was mostly ambivalent; it was the younger generation who mostly shouted about their environment. Yes, I knew all of that already. Who didn't in the demographic that Mad Men was aimed at?

As far as changing TV ads, yeah, sure, they took the Marlboro Man off the air, and commercials grew a bit darker, but it's always been the same underlying principle: let me show you that my product is better by throwing more money into advertising, and we can convince people to buy anything. It's the same thing in 2017.

I'm still saying that on a micro level Mad Men was brilliant in every sense of the word, but on a macro level it was snot.

BB and BCS has much more of an overarching flow to it, and I like shows better that way.

 

No surprise.

AMC Renews ‘Better Call Saul’ for Season 4

 

Now the question is who can they get to return to the show. A disappointment for me this season was the absence of Tuco.

 

Good to have that little matter out of the way.

 

I can't say I missed him because I think this was one of the more clichéd roles from BB, although seeing Jimmy try to reason with Tuco provided some of the more entertaining moments of the show and ultimately was a way to intro Nacho.

Also, I think this is one role where the fact that the actors aged yet are being asked to play younger versions of the characters gets in the way. The actor pulls it off, but you can plainly see he is older.

 

With Hector ending up in a wheelchair, I think we might see Tuco again taking care of his uncle.

 

I find Nacho a much more interesting character than Tuco.

 

I do, as well, but I like a bit of that unbridled insanity now and then.

Having watched BCS seasons 1 & 2 before watching any BB, I was unaware of the Tuco character until he presented himself in BCS. I'm sure those who watched BB first must have flipped when he answered the door during Jimmy's attempted skateboarder scam!

 

It was a mild shock to see Tuco answer the door in Better Call Saul. It was the first indication to me that this series was going to be more intense and unusual than I had expected.

 

Good point; I find Tuco much more unidimensional though. Plus, after BB, I had enough of him.

 

They can't do much with Tuco since he's in jail. Also, it's not like he's going to get time off for good behavior. I suppose they could have a jail scene or two - that could be cool, since Skinny Pete is in there with him.

 

That would be very cool! It might explain why, in Breaking Bad, Skinny Pete thought he was Tuco's close buddy, but it did not seem like the feeling was reciprocated.

 

I watched the season finale again. Two things caught my attention:

1. There will be no Sandpiper settlement now. Jimmy will not get his million dollars. I missed that the first time I watched the finale.

After Erin and Jimmy do their outdoor routine in which Jimmy says negative things about the elderly people, knowing that they were listening, Erin and Jimmy get together again after all of the elderly people have left the yoga room. Erin asks if Irene will be reversing her decision to settle. Jimmy says yes she will. Jimmy thanks Erin for participating. She says that she meant every word. He says that he knows that.

I have found the script for this episode online. Here is that scene:

So?
Like a charm, yeah.
She'll go back on the settlement?
I imagine you'll hear from
her within an hour or so.
- Good.
- Hey.
Well done in there.
I meant every word I said.
I know.
Thank you.

Read more: Better Call Saul (2015) s03e10 Episode Script | SS

2. After the finale aired, I read an article that Michael McKean, the actor who plays Chuck, thought that in the final scene, it was important that we see his empty pill bottle near him as he began kicking the table. I looked closely this time, and it is not easy to spot a pill bottle. It is less easy to tell that it is empty.

Here is the article: 'Better Call Saul' Star Michael McKean Explains Chuck's Finale Shocker

Here is the quote from Michael McKean that I was thinking of:

But I don’t think it is the world’s most conscious suicide, frankly.

I rarely had to ask for anything in the entire three seasons because things are so clear. I’ve had to ask very, very few questions, and I didn’t question this terribly much. Well, the only thing I really wanted them to do was to have the pill bottles in the picture occasionally, because in the last meeting I have with Dr. Cruz [Clea DuVall] — the last meeting on camera anyway — she talks about the medication, and we never saw it. So I said, “Look, if you want to see me in the bed feeling the discomfort, let’s see the pill bottles.” And in the last moments, I wanted to see an empty pill bottle there.

 

I feel that Jimmy's willingness to do this clearly shows that he is still much more Jimmy than Saul at this point.

 

Yeah, because Saul never does anything that erodes or conflicts with his interests. Er...

Sorry to be sarcastic, but I continue to be amazed that there is some sort of clear delineation for many of you between Jimmy and Saul when:
a) Jimmy has been using the Saul moniker on and off for his entire adult life.
b) His world-view was well established as a kid, after seeing his father taken by every scam artist in Cicero.
c) This view and the downstream guilt informs all his actions whether he is calling himself Jimmy, Saul or Viktor with a k.
d) As Jimmy, he robbed himself of the settlement in a case he had cobbled together out of thin air, and his ability to represent the elderly. As Saul he robbed himself of the ability to take any case or represent anyone.

 

I wonder if, when he wasn't dealing with criminals, maybe Saul still had a lot of Jimmy in him? We only saw the criminal defense side of him on BB.

 

The person you replied to didn't say there was a "clear delineation". In fact, they mentioned there was not a "clear delineation".

 

1. I came to this conclusion and mentioned it above. Now it's back to the law firm stretching out the case for a larger settlement.

2. I didn't notice the pill bottle in the final scene, I'll have to look when I re-watch. Thanks

 

How does, "I feel that Jimmy's willingness to do this clearly shows that he is still much more Jimmy than Saul at this point" infer anything but a clear delineation where some characteristics can be attributed to Jimmy and others to Saul?

 

But that's not what you were just earlier complaining about; there are some that think there is a "clear delineation". What you're now complaining about is that some think there may be a future "clear delineation".

 

I'm shocked at the concept of a clear delineation--past, present and future--because there is none. Same dude. Same motivations. Same modus operandi. Different clientele/marketing angle to explain why he goes "full Saul". That will no doubt be shown next season.

 

I think the fact that people can't agree on how much "Saul" is in Jimmy at any given time, or how much "Jimmy" might remain in "Saul" speaks to how great the show is and how great the character and acting and writing are.

I think getting hung up on how "clear" any delineation is kind of obscures the main crux of the character and the show. Sometimes it's very clear that he had some Saul in him all along (his past, obviously, and some of the things he's doing now), while at other times he's very clearly not nearly as detached and lacking in empathy and some vestige of morals as he ultimately is in "BB" (e.g. giving up the Sandpiper money to do right by the old folks).

Even in "BB" we see vestiges of a less cut-throat, self-centered guy (he clearly feels bad for Jesse at certain points, for instance).

If you think he was "100% Saul" from childhood and nothing has changed about him, then by all means go ahead. But I think being locked into that misses the point of the BCS show and ignores a ton of things Jimmy does and says, and ignores that the crux of the whole show is his struggle with being "good" or "bad" and all the shades in between, and all of the seemingly good or bad justifications for being good or bad.

 

Tell me you haven't been asking yourself ¨when is Jimmy gonna break bad¨ since the first episode .